Valentine Cricut Cards.....

So I showed you Max's Valentine card, here are the cards I made for the other grandchildren - this first one is for Kiki, I used Home Accents for the 'love' cut, and cut it twice, once in pink gemstone core-dinations cardstock, and once in white.....

I embossed the white heart with a heart embossing folder, and realized later that I had glued it with the de-bossed side upwards. Hey ho, it didn't matter....

This next one is for five year old Milo, who is a bit fixated on superheroes at the moment. It's a print and cut from the Paper Dolls Dress Up cartridge - I added a M for Milo to his vest, and added some glitter to the belt, mask and boots. Now I know that this makes him look a bit camp,  as if he is on his way to a Village People revival gig, and is about to throw his hands up in the air and start singing YMCA, but he needed a bit of bling!

and this one is for Monty, who I took to Disneyland Paris last year, so it seemed the right cut to use......

It is bitterly cold here, and we keep getting snow showers, but it's that wet snow that doesn't stick, so it's not exactly 'snowmaggedon' here, but I am watching out for the first real snowfall, and waiting for the country to grind to a halt, paralysed by an inch of snow - happens every year, how merrily the rest of the world must laugh at our predicament, but it's quite reassuring to know that our weather forecasters aren't the only guys to get it a tiny bit wrong - even I was on the edge of my seat this week waiting for the storm of the century to hit New York, (and of course delighted that it didn't).......but seeing the scientist guys a bit red faced and apologetic is strangely satisfying, and rather welcome, at least we know now that we aren't the only ones with forecasters who seem to make it up as they go along. 

It's a job I quite fancy doing, standing in front of a camera, making those sweeping hand gestures across a map of the world, smiling prettily and cheerfully when I tell you that there is going to be torrential wind and rain and your roof may blow off, then after five minutes of breaking bad news to the nation, I could flash my best Julia Roberts imitation smile and say goodbye....then go and do nice things like shopping and sitting in Starbucks for an hour or two. I would just have to hide, wear dark glasses like a film star in case I'm recognized, when everyone else comes in looking like drowned rats because I had told them it was going to be a lovely dry day......

All day dreams of course, I am about a hundred and fifty years too old for the job - have you noticed, wherever you are in the world, the weather people always have immaculate shiny hair and extra white shiny teeth, and have only recently endured the ordeal of puberty. They never look as if they've been caught in a torrential downpour either, come to think of it - perhaps they know something they aren't telling us...

See you tomorrow x

House Mouse Autumn Card

I love making autumny cards after the bright colours of summer. I coloured the mouse in with prisma pencils, the papers are all from DCWV's Indian Summer stack, and the leaves were cut from Home Accents

The leaves look a bit frayed in the photo, they are not like that in real life......
We have been coping with a few technical breakdowns here..... I won't bore you with the non-functioning dishwasher, or the memory stick that refused to give up it's pictures to the computer. Let's concentrate on the saga of the garage door................
Anne and I went out (shopping!) one evening, got back home and the remote control for the garage door failed. We didn't have a key, so drove to some neighbours who were already in their PJ's and collected the spare key. The next day, the door wouldn't budge, or opened in a intermittent sort of way. A friend called round to take a look. He tested the remote - nothing, tested the wall switch, nothing................ then he took a look at the sensors and said 'ermmmm, you've put a sack of garbage in front of the sensor'. Voila, fully functional door. Thanks Howard. Truly a double blonde moment I think, we probably shouldn't be allowed out without supervision

Love You - for Bitten by the Bug and Colour CreateChallenge

The design team were asked to use the Love cut from the Home Accents cartridge, and to cut it in brown. So here's what I did. The base card is 5" x 7", the LOVE was cut at 4" then run through the cuttlebug using the swiss dots folder. I cut the aqua heart at 3 3/4" and added peach prima flowers with aqua gems in the centres. The stamp is a sitting Tilda by Magnolia stamps, coloured with copic markers and cut out. I put her to sit on the letter L. I punched strips of brown, peach and cream with Martha Stewarts doily lace punch. The word 'you' is done with Heidi rub ons by making memories. Click HERE to see all the design team's take on the challenge. I found a new challenge blog this week called Colour CreateChallenge, and this week they are asking for cards made using aqua and peach, so this one fits the bill perfectly. I so rarely manage to combine challenges, I feel quite proud of myself for combining these two this week, or at least I did until I went back and saw that the only other colour you are allowed to use is cream or white. Hmm, we'll have to pretend that the brown is a very dark cream then.

Chipboard Challenge for Basic Grey

Over on the Basic Grey challenge site this week, the brief was to use chipboard on the card. I used Sultry papers, the bright pink piece on the left hand side was cut with storybook, using the marquee 2 cut, I cut at 4" then cut it in half. The brown scroll is from accent essentials, and the chipboard buttons are from a pack I picked up in Michaels dollar bins before I came home. They are by colorbok. I cut the marquee again for the sentiment, which is by great impressions. I do love Basic Grey papers, and those little 6 x 6 packs are such an affordable way to get your hands on them.

Thanks for all the emails with good wishes for Max. I am happy to say that he is out of hospital and seems full of beans. I am going to look after him for three days, so will probably be on my knees by Wednesday :)

Get Well Card - Home Accents

So I caved in and bought the Home Accents solution cartridge, although I didn't see anything on there that grabbed me. I thought this flower head cut looked a bit like the dandelion seed heads, so cut it in white at 4" and a leaf at 2". Heavily glittered and with some gems, it's a really pretty cut. The sentiment is by Great Impressions.

A Perfect Pair Anniversary Card

I was at a 'swarm' this weekend, which is the nickname for a crop for cricut addicts. It was in Orlando, and luckily two of my pals came with me, so I didn't have to drive (thanks Cheryl). I hate the interstates around Orlando, and would probably still be there, going round and round in circles, handing over the kids inheritance at the toll booths........................... Anyway, back to the swarm, we had a great time, made new friends, laughed and chatted a lot. I made only 5 cards in 2 days, which is an indication of how much I was enjoying myself. We were asked to provide 30 items to put in 'goodie bags', and I had no idea I was supposed to be crafty. The stuff was fantastic - to give you an indication of how much I have to raise the bar for the next swarm, the fabulous little cat face treat bag above, is by my super talented friend Phyllis. She made 30!

The design team over on Bitten By The Bug were asked to use this pear cut from Home Accents this week. Take a look over there, there are some amazing designs. I cut the pears at 4", using papers from a Cloud 9 stack (Joannes), the white scallops are a new punch by martha stewart (who else?!) called double scallops. Ribbon also by MS